Trading of shares of Canadian smartphone maker BlackBerry were halted Monday morning as the firm convened a special committee to explore strategic alternatives, fanning talk of a possible bid to go private in order to fix its problems while out of the public eye.

BlackBerry has been mulling going private in the wake of disappointing sales of its latest flagship products, which most recently resulted in a quarterly loss of $84 million when the company shipped only 2.7 million devices running its latest operating system. The firm announced on Monday that its directors had formed a special committee to ponder BlackBerry's options going forward, though there is no guarantee that this process will result in any particular transaction.

Going private, at least, would remove from BlackBerry's executives the burden of having to justify quarterly performances to shareholders. The company has been continually cutting staff and closing operations in order reduce expenditures, and chief executive Thorsten Heins, along with much of the rest of the company's executive staff, have been under heavy scrutiny in light of BlackBerry's performances.

The staff reductions are a continuation of a months-long process that has seen BlackBerry cutting operations in order to increase efficiencies and scale the company correctly to its user base. In the years before Apple's iPhone and devices running Google's Android OS rose to prominence in the smartphone sector, BlackBerry produced dozens of phone models per year. Recent months have seen the Canadian firm scaling back that production to just three new devices running BlackBerry 10 this year.

Other options available to BlackBerry include a joint venture or a possible sale to another technology company. Lenovo has previously been mentioned as a candidate to acquire BlackBerry, adding a developed smartphone segment much as it did a computing segment when it bought IBM's PC division in 2005. In March of this year, Lenovo's chief executive made headlines with his honesty in telling a French newspaper that acquiring BlackBerry would make sense. The company has not, though, made any public overtures since.

BlackBerry 10 OS is currently in fourth place among mobile operating systems, behind Google's Android, Apple's iOS, and Microsoft's Windows Phone. It holds that position, though, largely due to the fact that there are virtually no other major operating systems currently in wide release. The past quarter saw Windows Phone solidifying its lead over BlackBerry, with Nokia shipping more Windows Phone devices than BlackBerry did smartphones in total.

It would be better than Tizen, it would get them out of Apple's hair and Android can get used to being on TV remote controls and garage door openers where it belongs.

Android will never be secure (unless it's a controlled fork) and Google will never relinquish control (so it has to be their controlled fork). Therefore Android will never be a serious contender as an OS in the new world that's evolving around us. Everything is moving to mobile. Until Android can be secure, it's a waste of time for anyone to implement it in anything serious. It's also pretty much a cobbled together nightmare of an OS, whereas Blackberry is secure, and intelligently and purposely designed from the ground up.

It would be better than Tizen, it would get them out of Apple's hair and Android can get used to being on TV remote controls and garage door openers where it belongs.

Android will never be secure (unless it's a controlled fork) and Google will never relinquish control (so it has to be their controlled fork). Therefore Android will never be a serious contender as an OS in the new world that's evolving around us. Everything is moving to mobile. Until Android can be secure, it's a waste of time for anyone to implement it in anything serious. It's also pretty much a cobbled together nightmare of an OS, whereas Blackberry is secure, and intelligently and purposely designed from the ground up.

It would be better than Tizen, it would get them out of Apple's hair and Android can get used to being on TV remote controls and garage door openers where it belongs.

Android will never be secure (unless it's a controlled fork) and Google will never relinquish control (so it has to be their controlled fork). Therefore Android will never be a serious contender as an OS in the new world that's evolving around us. Everything is moving to mobile. Until Android can be secure, it's a waste of time for anyone to implement it in anything serious. It's also pretty much a cobbled together nightmare of an OS, whereas Blackberry is secure, and intelligently and purposely designed from the ground up.

Could this possibly be an investment for Apple JUST to keep a company like Samsung from buying it also? Not that Apple would actually do anything with it but bury it in it's backyard. More than likely won't happen, but IJS.

It would be better than Tizen, it would get them out of Apple's hair and Android can get used to being on TV remote controls and garage door openers where it belongs.

Android will never be secure (unless it's a controlled fork) and Google will never relinquish control (so it has to be their controlled fork). . . Until Android can be secure, it's a waste of time for anyone to implement it in anything serious.

Could this possible be a possible investment for Apple JUST to keep a company like Samsung from buying it also? Not that Apple would actually do anything with it but bury it in it's backyard. More than likely won't happen, but IJS.

Well I hate Samsungs products and worse, I think if the company was a person it would be just a despicable human being. They are immoral, overly aggressive, and they make bad products.

That being said, I like the idea of having competition and at least two ways of doing something. Especially because Apple is a US based company, and especially because of their strong support of censorship I would really like to see at least one original, credible, alternative to Apple's products out there. I don't see it in Android or in Tizen at the moment, so giving Samsung their own original and well designed smartphone platform to base their future offerings on is a good idea IMO.

Certainly OK to disagree. Before doing so you could at least read the links you imagine yourself to disagree with. You very obviously didn't have time in the 2 minutes you took to reply to both me and another poster.

Could this possibly be an investment for Apple JUST to keep a company like Samsung from buying it also? Not that Apple would actually do anything with it but bury it in it's backyard. More than likely won't happen, but IJS.

Considering the anti-trust issues I can't imagine the governments involved would sign off on it.

one way or another, BB will be liquidated by next year. if Motorola's patents were worth $12 billion (less what they got selling off parts of the company) to Google, BB's patents must be worth about the same to whoever. right now its market cap is $5.3 billion. Samsung probably thinks it could use them, yes.

and QNX is the only alternative OS readily available. but i don't think Samsung feels it needs another given its investment in Tizen. and what other OEM would dare, given the total fiasco that HP's purchase of Palm for Web OS proved to be? even tho the $1.2 billion price HP paid was chicken feed.

Nokia of course should buy BB to save itself from inevitable assimilation by MS'. but Nokia can't sink that much cash anymore into a different OS that will take one/two years to fully integrate with its products and services (the few it has left). in hindsight it's clear Nokia and BB should have merged 3 years ago, but both were far too proud at the time to realize it.

so the BB patents will probably be auctioned off to a consortium of companies, like Kodak's were last year for a measly $250 million (unless they can find another big sucker like Google), and the hardware line + brand name scooped up cheap by whatever not-Samsung Asian OEM that is determined to stay in the smartphone business long term and needs its own OS. sounds like HTC to me ...

They built and sold so much shit all those years it feels like a bad dream ....

You obviously never owned a Blackberry.

When BB came on the scene they were as much of a jump in tech as the iPhone was when it was released.

BBs were well built and lasted for years. Lots of great features and its messaging system was second to none. I still miss the little red flashing light to let me know a call, email or text had arrived whenever I was making too much noise to hear the phone.

RIM's failure wasn't in its ability to innovate, its failure was in the two knobs who used to run the company... they refused to open their eyes. Google realized what was happening when the iPhone was released and changed direction.

See the realistic fact of criticising iPhone and now BB is facing the consequences of their unethical marketing strategies the same fate will take care of Nokia and the greatest underdog Microsoft of the current century

FYI:
Cue: a signal (as a word, phrase, or bit of stage business) to a performer to begin a specific speech or action
Queue: a waiting line especially of persons or vehicles
Que: Spanish for 'that' or 'which'

See the realistic fact of criticising iPhone and now BB is facing the consequences of their unethical marketing strategies the same fate will take care of Nokia and the greatest underdog Microsoft of the current century

That can't be! Amateur hour and the smartphone beta test are both over!

FYI:
Cue: a signal (as a word, phrase, or bit of stage business) to a performer to begin a specific speech or action
Queue: a waiting line especially of persons or vehicles
Que: Spanish for 'that' or 'which'

Also:

Q: '... a highly powerful entity from a race of omnipotent, godlike beings also known as the "Q".'

Maybe HP will be dumb enough to buy Blackberry. They were certainly dumb enough to buy Palm.

I don't think Palm was a dumb purchase. HP's inability to properly utilize Palm was the dumb part. Palm just didn't seem to fit HP's corporate dna. It looked interesting to HP, so they bought it, but then they studied it like it was an alien in a glass cage. Eventually it just died.

Could this possibly be an investment for Apple JUST to keep a company like Samsung from buying it also? Not that Apple would actually do anything with it but bury it in it's backyard. More than likely won't happen, but IJS.